


The Junk in Baby's Trunk

by TammyRenH



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: spnspringfling, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 20:19:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3663651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TammyRenH/pseuds/TammyRenH
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wanting to assist Charlie, Sam searches for Dad's journal in Dean's car but finds way more than he bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Junk in Baby's Trunk

 

Sam was sitting at his desk so deep into a Greek book on spells, some of which were pretty damn grisly, that he almost dropped the phone when it went off. (He had been using a translation app because let’s face it the only people who spoke Greek were, well, Greeks)  It took him a few moments to get back to the here and the now, which, by glancing at his phone was 5:25 a.m.

Still trying to shake off that dark and disturbing book, Sam answered the phone.  “Charlie?”

“Hey,” By the background noise, Sam could tell Charlie was in some sort of public place.  “I know it’s ridiculously early over there, but I also know you don’t sleep.  Which you should, by the way, get some sleep.  In fact I think you should do that just as soon as – “

“Charlie.”  Sam interrupted as he ran his hands through his hair, still trying to focus.  “Any luck on locating The Book of the Damned?”

“No luck there, but I did get a lead on another book.  I am supposed to be meeting someone here by the name of Margot Vallet. She specializes in finding books for well, people like us.  She says she can get her hands on a book called Dogme et Rituel; which is apparently an ancient book on alchemy. It’s a long shot that the book will be any help, but let’s face it all our shots are long.  I was hoping maybe you knew something about the book, let me know if it’s worth pursuing.”

“There’s something about that title that sounds vaguely familiar.”  Sam thought about it for a second mentally brushing the cobwebs out of his mind.  “Hold on, I think Dad might have mentioned the book in his journal.”  Sam tried to remember the last time he had seen the journal, they had taken it on a hunt a few weeks back.  Maybe it was still in the Impala’s trunk.  He pulled out the secret door in the desk and snatched up a super-secret copy of Dean’s car key he had made a while back for reasons he didn’t want to think too much about.   “I’m heading out to the garage.  So tell me about this Margot person, how did you meet her?”

“Well I haven’t yet,” Charlie replied, “Not in person anyway.   I stumbled onto this online community that obsessively discusses ancient lore, medieval archives, sacred texts, in other words my type of people. We met there, sent a lot of messages back and forth and then we arranged to meet here today.  I’m a wee bit nervous.”

“Sounds like you two really hit it off,” Sam teased as he turned the light on in the garage and made his way to Dean’s car’s trunk.  “So, mixing business with pleasure huh?”

Charlie snorted.  “Please.  The way she tells it, she’s been into this ancient lore stuff since forever. I am picturing a female Bobby to be honest, not that there was anything wrong with Bobby or how he looked or – this may have escaped your attention but I tend to ramble when I’m nervous and I’m going to shut up now.”

Sam laughed and then groaned when he got a good look in the contents in the trunk.  “You are so lucky you can’t see this mess. Or smell it.”  Sam informed her as he gingerly began picking through the jumble.  “I don’t think it’s been cleaned out since before – “

“Dean was a demon.”  Charlie interjected. “You know there’s no telling what – or who - he may have put in there when he was all evil and everything.”

“Thanks for that.” Sam replied as he continued to push things aside to look for the journal, geez it really was a mess. “You know he spent days cleaning and polishing every inch of the outside of this car but apparently he didn’t see the need to even touch the trunk.”

“I was like that, when my mother made me clean my room.  If you just glanced into the room, it looked great.  However, under the bed – different story.  I always found something that I got involved in like a book or my star wars collection or a puzzle and I would want to spend the day doing that instead so I would just shove everything else under my bed.  I bet Dean was the same way but you – didn’t have a Mom.  Or a room.  This time I am really going to stop talking. “

Sam found what he thought was the journal and pulled it out.  But the leather bound book in his hand was much newer and had “Sam” written in the front in Dean’s handwriting.  He had never seen this book before.  “Hey Charlie – “

At the same time Sam could hear a young woman’s voice, with a dusky French accent, “Mademoiselle?”

“Hey it’s my – I mean Margot just got here.  Hi.”  Charlie’s voice changed as she talked to Margot, she sounded breathless and her voice dropped an octave or two. “You made it! I will be with you in just one sec.  That’s an awesome dress by the way.” She whispered in the phone to Sam. “Nothing like Bobby.”

“So I gathered.  Have fun, call me after.”  Sam hung up the phone and put it away.  His attention was focused on the book in front of him.

It was a large red leather bound journal, something like Dad’s might have looked like when it was new.  He picked it up and placed it on the ground and lowered himself so that he was sitting cross legged in front of it.  He opened the first page and found – chaos.

There were newspapers articles, printouts from Wikipedia and other online postings, scraps of papers with notes written on them, crudely drawn pictures of monsters, pictures of himself and Dean that he had no idea who took or how Dean came into possession of them.

He turned the journal over, letting all the contents spill onto the floor, and began to try to sort through the resulting bedlam.  He came across Dean’s notes on the wendigo they had hunted so many years ago, a picture of the little girl Sam had saved from drowning, hunts that Sam had almost forgotten, years and years of people saved and people lost, monsters they had faced, notes from Bobby concerning how many seals had been broken.  His whole life and Dean’s whole life, in tiny bits and pieces, scattered on the floor.

How long had Dean been doing this and how had he kept it a secret from Sam?   And why was it Sam’s name on the front of the journal, not Dean’s?

“It’s a legacy.”   A voice came from over Sam’s head.  “Our legacy actually.”

For the second time that day, Sam was startled.  “I – I was – “

“I think the word you are looking for here is snooping.”  Dean bent down and began scooping up the papers and shoving them back into the journal.  He seemed more annoyed than mad, for which Sam was relieved.  “I think me and you need to have a little talk about something called privacy.”

“Sorry.” Sam stood up, wincing a bit as he heard a knee crack.  Getting older sucked.  “But why didn’t you tell me you were keeping a journal?”

“You weren’t supposed to know.”  Dean informed him as he finished pushing things into the journal and placed the journal on top of the nearest car.  “It’s for after.”

“After what?”  Sam asked.

Dean looked at him for a long moment, and then abruptly changed the topic.  “What were you doing rummaging in Baby’s trunk anyway?”

“Charlie called and she – “Sam realized suddenly he couldn’t tell Dean what Charlie had asked about without confessing what for.  “She – uh – she’s been hunting over in France.  She needed me to look up something for her that I thought was in Dad’s journal and instead I found this – “  Sam reached in the trunk and pulled out some of the things inside and dropped them back down again.  “- unholy mess.  I see your keeping Baby pristine obsession didn’t include the trunk.”

“First of all,” Dean stated as he walked over to his car.  “Bite me.  And second of all – bite me.” Dean gave a sigh and then began sorting through the clutter.

“Well said,” Sam nudged his brother as he stood beside him and began stuffing things that looked like trash into an empty grocery sack he had found lying in the trunk.  As usual, they divided up job duties without saying a word.  Sam picked up a shirt, sniffed it, and gingerly handed it to his brother.  That explained the smell.

“Charlie’s hunting alone? “  Dean asked after a few minutes of comfortable silence.  “In a foreign country?”

“Well you know Charlie – “Sam shrugged.  “Plus, she’s not necessarily alone.  Last time I talked to her she was chatting up a French lady.  If the woman is half as sexy as she sounds, Charlie’s definitely not going to be lonely for long.”

“That’s our girl.”  Dean smiled as he grabbed the case of weapons.  “I might as well clean these while I’m at it.”

As Dean pulled the case out of the Impala, an envelope fell to the bottom of the trunk.  Sam picked it up, thinking it was trash but then stopped as he realized it was an official looking envelope with his name typed neatly on it.

“Dean?”  Sam asked, as he started to look inside the envelope.  “What’s this?”

Dean turned around quickly and snatched the envelope away from Sam, but not before Sam had pulled out a piece of paper.  “That’s not yours.”

“It has my name on it.”  Sam held the paper up and away from Dean as he quickly scanned it.  It was an acceptance letter for UCLA graduate school.  For him.  “What the hell?”

Dean managed to grab the paper and quickly folded it up.  “You weren’t supposed to see that yet.  It’s for later.”

“You keep saying that.”  Sam told him, looking at Dean quizzically until the answer came to him.  “No, no, no, no, no.  We’re not playing this game.  You are going to get through this.  You are not going to die.  You’ve done such a good job at fighting the mark, don’t give up now.”

“It’s not a case of giving up, it’s a case of me accepting what cannot be changed.” Dean informed him, as he unconsciously pulled down his shirt sleeve, covering the mark. “You should be proud, that’s character growth for me.”  Dean smirked at Sam, but Sam couldn’t manage a smile in return.  Returning to seriousness, Dean continued.  “Look, I really didn’t want to go into this. Not today, not ever really.  I just – I wanted to leave something behind.  For you. I know where I am headed and you can choose to accept it, or not, but it’s still going to happen.”

Sam wanted to argue the point, but he knew this wasn’t the time. So instead, he just put down the half-filled grocery sack and turned toward Dean so that Dean could see all his focus was on him. 

Dean patted the journal.  “This – this is our legacy.  This is what we’ve accomplished together. I was planning to organize it someday – but we both know you are better suited for that job.  We’ve done so much, given so much, lost so much.  I wanted you to see Sammy that it’s enough.  We’ve done enough.  Once I’m gone, finish the journal and pass it down like Dad passed his to us.  Charlie would really get a kick out of this thing. “

“And then what?  Give up the job?  And just – go to graduate school and pretend none of this ever happened?”   Sam asked, trying not to sound defensive or angry and failing a bit at both.

“Yes.   Yes.   Exactly.”  Dean looked up at his brother, his hand on Sam’s arm.  “It’s what you’ve always wanted, look how many times you’ve tried to do just that.”

“And failed.”  Sam reminded him.  “I am not going to be some lawyer Dean.  That life’s long lost to me now.”

“Then be a doctor, you’d be damned good at it.”  Dean’s voice sounded sharp and prickly.  “Be a teacher, be a writer, sell men’s clothes.  I don’t care what you do, as long as you are safe.  Just don’t do this anymore, don’t keep fighting this battle that can’t be won.  If I am going – and I am going – then I need you to do this one thing for me.  I need you to live Sam, in fact I need you to promise me you will.”

Sam stood looking at his brother, wanting to argue but not wanting to distress Dean any further.  “I’ll think about it.  I will.”  He said as Dean shot him one of his patented looks.  “How is this for a compromise? I’ll be a man of letters, hang up my traveling boots, be the research guy full=time.”

“And live your life here shut off from everyone?” Dean’s voice crackled with emotion, Sam winced at the pain of it.  “That’s great Sam.  That’s what I needed to hear.”

“Dean – “

Dean waved him off.  “This is why I didn’t want to talk about this. Let’s – let’s just forget it for now.  Help me get this stuff in the bunker.”  Dean said as he piled some of the clothes on top of the weapon’s case.  Sam pulled his key out of the Impala’s trunk.  “Sam?”

Sam turned to look at his brother, relieved to see Dean looking less distressed and more like himself.  “Yes?”

“Key.” 

Sam grinned sheepishly and threw the key at Dean, Dean caught it with one hand before sending one more comment Sam’s way before he left the garage. “You try making another copy of Baby’s key and there won’t be enough bits left of you to send to graduate school.”  

Sam closed the trunk and picked up the journal Dean had left on the nearby Corvette.  As he brushed his fingers over Dean’s words he whispered a mantra that echoed the beating of his heart.  “I will save him. I will save him.  I will.”

THE END

 


End file.
